As funding runs out, could Arizona border towns face street releases of migrants?
Download mp3 (9.45 MB)Federal funding to transport migrants from Arizona border cities like Nogales and Douglas to services in Tucson is running out fast. And leaders in those communities are worried about what comes next.
With record numbers of migrants arriving at the border in recent months, Douglas Mayor Donald Huish is working to find alternative solutions to avoid so-called “street releases” of asylum seekers by Border Patrol into the community with no resources.
He spoke more about the issue with The Show.
Full interview
LAUREN GILGER: Good morning.
DONALD HUISH: Good morning. How are you?
GILGER: I'm great. Thanks for coming on. So federal funding we know is set to run out soon. What's the timeline look like? Like how long do you have?
HUISH: We're still projecting at this point at the end of this month. So we're basically 20 days away from funding ending.
GILGER: OK. OK. So talk about your concerns here. What impact this might have on a community your size?
HUISH: It'll be devastating on our community because we have no major transportation out out of our community, and we've been dependent upon the good graces of Pima County from their federal funds that they received to provide bussing to transport the migrants out of our community up to Tucson so that they can secure major transportation to be able to reach their final destiny.
GILGER: So without that federal funding, without that bussing available to Tucson, are you worried about so called street releases about migrants just being released into the town with, with no resources?
HUISH: We, we, we have nothing here, and so it is very concerning. We've taken steps to try to contact commercial transportation to see if they'd be willing to send buses down at the cost of the migrant to be able to transport them out. We have been unsuccessful so far for, for major bus lines. We have worked out some help from some of the local shuttles, but even at that price of around $50, $55 it still is prohibitive for many of the migrants.
GILGER: Right. So this, this isn't something, it sounds like your town can support on its own in terms of funding. How many people are we talking about? Like how many people are arriving into Douglas daily or weekly and then being bussed up to Tucson,
HUISH: We run anywhere from 30 to 120 a day. It, it fluctuates. For example, this morning, we got notified there'd be 40 at eight o'clock and who knows what the rest of the day will handle. So we've been fortunate to have a couple of buses come down each day. But again, when that funding ends, we're at a loss, we don't know what to do. We've had one of our local NGOs that has been dealing with migrants on the border for many, many years. They've offered us they're providing some of their small buses, which has a capacity of 14 passenger, to try to help with the overflow of people wanting to, to move on, but that's not going to be enough. And that's how we can sustain that is is beyond our vision right now.
GILGER: Tell us more about what this has been like in a border community like yours in recent months in the last year or two as we've seen this rise in migrants arriving at the border. What are the challenges in that for your community?
HUISH: Well, fortunately, it hasn't been a major impact. And what I mean by that is that we do not have them wandering around our streets because it has been very orderly. We have a local church that was kind enough to house them to provide temporary shelter in their hall. And so it's been very orderly. They were able to get off their feet, get a drink of water, use the facilities and then board the bus and head off to Tucson. So that portion of it has been good. Taking that away, meaning the transportation to allow them to further their journey into the United States, will be devastating because the closest is Tucson, which is 120 miles. So how they would get from our, our Douglas town up to Tucson is scary to try to figure out how we can do that.
GILGER: What are the other options you talked about? Sort of looking at, at private companies,, bus companies that can do this. Are you asking for state funding, other kind of funding?
HUISH: We've made it very clear our, our desperate need to the state and we've also in conjunction with the rest of the mayors here in Cochise County. We've sent a letter to the White House. I expressed to them the situation here in our communities and asked for their assistance to do that. I know Congressman Grijalva who represents our area has been very active in this. Senator Sinema, Senator Kelly have also been very, very active in this situation along with the Congressman Juan Ciscomani who's just north of us but represents Tucson, so it's affecting them also.
Just yesterday, I received notice from Congressman Grijalva's office that he joined with some colleagues there in Congress asking for $3 billion in House Appropriations to be able to help resolve and help facilitate and mitigate the the situation here on the border as far as transportation and sheltering. So I hope that's considered and I hope it goes through. If the border is not going to be shut down, we need to have some relief somehow.
GILGER: What do you think the trickle down effects of this kind of loss of funding could be for your community? Are you worried about homelessness? Are you worried about a strain on city resources?
HUISH: We're very much concerned about that because we have again, to reiterate, we have no place to house them. We don't have temporary housing. We don't have any set up shelters. Again, this has been out of the goodness of one of our local churches that we didn't have a shelter right now for them. And so when all that goes away, they, they're left on the street and that's not, then it becomes a humanitarian issue and it's a concern because as people are left without means they do things that they normally wouldn't do. And so that's a concern to us and a concern to our population here.
GILGER: All right, we'll leave it there for now. Douglas Mayor Donald Huish joining us. Mayor, thank you for coming on. I appreciate it.
HUISH: Well, thank you for bringing this issue forward and, and thank you for your support.
